#House Speaker #MikeJohnson is plowing ahead on a #ForeignAid plan that has roiled his conference & prompted 2 #Republicans to push an effort to oust him….
But instead of the complex 4-part plan he floated this week, Johnson now intends to try to pass 5 bills — 1 each for #aid to #Ukraine, #Israel, & #IndoPacific allies, …a #GOP wish list of #ForeignPolicy priorities & a 5th…to address widespread Republican… [#border ] demands….
Of course; a govt built on mendacity would meet its climate spending pledges, not by actually spending the money but by reclassifying other expenditures so they can be double counted.
Its not like we needed any more evidence of the moral bankruptcy of the Tories, but here it is anyway!
@ChrisMayLA6 Here's the original article from Carbon Brief's Josh Gabbatiss. Carbon Brief did the original Freedom of Information request.
"By redefining existing funds pegged for development banks, investment in foreign businesses and humanitarian aid as “climate finance”, the government expects to add £1.72bn to its total."
What is Australia's fair share when it comes to financing the necessary climate transition?
In a headline today, the Australian government has pledged AU$150m in #ClimateFinance for Pacific nations.
Good news, right? Isn't this PM Anthony #Albanese "ending the #ClimateWars" by actually doing what #Australia ought to have done years ago? Let's consider that assumption.
Back in 2009 at the much hyped, but ultimately deeply disappointing international climate negotiations in #Copenhagen known as #COP15, one step forward that was agreed, even as more comprehensive or ambitious agreements slipped away was that the wealthy nations of the world (including #Australia) collectively pledged to be providing US$100b each year to help the poorer nations transition away from #FossilFuels (#ClimateMitigation) and develop in ways that help societies adapt to the warming that cannot be mitigated (#ClimateAdaptation).
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The provision of US$100b in #ClimateFinance per year was promised by 2020, with a #GreenClimateFund being set up in 2010–11 and national contributions commencing in subsequent years. An updated agreement in 2012 clarified that these funds had to be "new and additional", i.e. not simply a rebranding of existing #ForeignAid. And they had to be made to the international Green Climate Fund, not via other bilateral or multilateral agreements.
Disputes over the international distribution of responsibilities for funding #ClimateMitigation and #ClimateAdaptation measures—costly measures that would benefit everyone—had long been one of the main sticking points in the decades of UN climate negotiations since 1992 when the #UNFCCC was established. (UNFCCC = United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, i.e. the international agreement to have international climate negotiations in the first place, and how to go about those negotiations.)
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When the #GreenClimateFund was being established, Australia's Prime Minister was #TonyAbbott, a #ClimateDenier, who had won the 2013 federal election promising to dismantle the baby steps towards a #ClimatePolicy the previous #Labor government had made.
So there was little surprise when PM Abbott announced in Nov 2013 that #Australia would be contributing a massive sum of $0 to the Green Climate Fund.
At the time, he claimed Australia would chip in AU$200m (then =USD$187m) over four years, but since this was merely a rebranding of existing #ForeignAid, it clearly didn't count as "new and additional funding", a fact that most journalists blithely ignored, falling for the bait-and-switch. Or we might say instead that the Australian government was overstating its foreign aid commitments by $200m over those years.
Nonetheless, the four years were soon gone, as was Tony Abbott, as well as his successor #MalcolmTurnbull, who in turn had been replaced as PM by #ScottMorrison. When it came time to pledge again in 2018, Morrison announced Australia would be pulling out of the Green Climate Fund entirely, a path also taken by the #Trump administration at the time, whom Morrison was often cribbing notes from when it came to what kinds of #cruelty and #selfishness he could get away with.
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#SouthAfrica today officially started the process of shutting down its last money commitment to the higher African Renaissance ideals of the Thabo Mbeki era, and implementing the American and Chinese model of foreign aid: self-interested spend with a specific goal in mind.
And it cleared the decks to give more money to Cuba.
There's a long (and fascinating) backstory about an imminent restructure of #ForeignAid that's been delayed for 16 years, and a lobby group that went to court to stop a big donation to Cuba.
But the crux is that South Africa is shutting down its African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund, and handing its cash over to the South African Development Partnership Agency.
Which was supposed to be much of a muchness. Then we saw the draft legislation.